Academic forum explores the changing face of identity within a contemporary context.
One of City University’s eminent scholars and Reader in Information Security, Dr muttukrishnan rajarajan, is part of the multi-disciplinary consortium exploring the concept of identity within a modern context.
Vigilance learnt that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC) funded 'Future of Identity Network of Excellence', to which Dr Rajarajan belongs, brings together a unique grouping representing academia, industry and government, spanning a variety of disciplines, including computer science, law, sociology and psychology.
It was gathered that their research activities had been motivated by key questions such as 'Who am I?', exploring the way individuals define and reveal their identity both online and offline.
This question is believed to have raised related issues of ethics and social responsibility, whilst at a sociological level, the research also attempts to discuss the question of 'Who needs to know?'
Scholars said critically, this addresses issues of ownership, storage and use of information given that trust and privacy are pivotal both from the perspective of the individual and the service provider. Allied considerations of the ways in which legal regulations reflect sociological, anthropological and psychological thinking on identity are also examined.
Also, the Future of Identity Network of Excellence also investigates the extent to which technology can facilitate identity and identity management. With real threats to critical infrastructure from cyber terrorists, for instance, Dr Rajarajan is of the view that technological advances need to be focussed to identify insider threat, and to deliver trust and transparency to users, while enabling flexible authentication systems that are attuned to the security level of the information or service.
Dr Rajarajan believes that the Future of Identity Network of Excellence will have a strong impact on current thinking regarding identity:
Said he: "The Future of Identity Network represents a necessary and timely forum to explore the rich and provocative themes of identity within a modern context. Our findings will be of great value to a broad variety of stakeholders not just within academia but also from government and the private sector".
About Dr. M. Rajarajan
Reader in Information Security
Programme Director BEng Engineering with Management and Entrepreneurship
Raj received his BEng and PhD degrees from City University London in 1994 and 1999 respectively. From 1999 he worked at City University London as a Research Fellow. In August 2000 he moved to Logica as a Telecommunication Consultant. After a few years in the industry Raj is now a Reader in Information Security Systems. He is also the Programme Director for the Engineering with Management and entrepreneurship programme
Raj leads the Information Security Group (ISG) at City University London which carries out research in the following domains:
- Cyber Security
- Wireless Security
- Cloud Security & Trust
- Identity Management and Access Control
- Multi-factor Authentication
- Lightweight Cryptography
Information Security Group has received over GBP 1.5M in the last 2 years to carry out research and commercialisation activities in information security and cybercrime. The group’s innovation in the area of mobile banking security has attracted a lot of interest from major content and mobile providers and currently they are partnering with Decimal Technologies to commercialise this research. Strong research collaboration exists between the BT Security Research atAdastral Park, Ipswich and City University London security research team. They also have strong international links with the Centre for the Advancement of Computing (C-DAC), India in the areas of Grid Security, cybercrime and Critical National Infrastructure protection. Moreover, they collaborate with several other security groups across the world including the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, Birla Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Punjab Engineering College, IIIT Bangalore and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. Furthermore Information Security Group has strong industrial links with IBM Research labs, Infosys, SecureMatrix, Cisco, AirTight Networks, E&Y, Accenture and other major IT and Security industries.
The research group was involved in the organisation of the First International conference in Information Security and Digital Forensics in September 2009, ISDF 2009, e-Health 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey, IEEE conference on collaborative security technologies.
He is a senior member of IEEE, a member of IET and an associate member of the institute of information security professionals (IISP) and a member of Technical Programme Committees for PIERS 2010, eHealth 2010, SECURECOM2011, TrustBus 2011, Digital Economy 2012, IFIPTM 2012 and IFIP SEC 2012. He is also the General Chair of SECURECOMM 2011 in London.
He also sits on the Editorial boards of Springer/ACM Journal on Wireless Networks, Elsevier Journal of Health Policy and Technology and Emerald Journal of Information Management and Computer Security.